Hitchcock-ian is a common term these days. It’s meant to suggest a specific tone, one of dark psychology and shocking images. It’s used with reference to Alfred Hitchcock, the famed director of classics like Psycho, Vertigo, and North by Northwest. A Kind of Murder was described as Hitchcock-ian by the Tribeca Film Festival, and the description …
There are plenty of reasons why someone may not take to Detour, the feature film debut from writer/director Christopher Smith. It’s storytelling methods may confuse many audience members, and the story it tells is rather thin when you try to examine it. Still, Detour’s an adventurous idea, and it’s one well worth your time. As …
It’s been fifteen years since Mulholland Dr. came out, shocking and confusing cinema-goers with its bizarre worldview. In spite of this extended length of time, it’s been understandably difficult for any other movie to capture that experience. That is, until Always Shine. Always Shine is not a remake or even a retread. It takes the tone of Mulholland Dr., an eerie, …
At 34, Nancy (Londoner-accented Lake Bell) is a flakey journalist on the reluctant look for love at the pestering of friends and family. Through a case of mistaken identity hinging on a self-help book, she winds up on a date turned epic day with Jack (Simon Pegg), an online marketing manager. Charming, right? It’s this on-the-nose “charm” which will divide audiences into lovers and haters (with this viewer falling more towards the latter). In spite of a stellar cast, Man Up falls flat on its promising premise of being a rom-com for nonbelievers.
Friday’s films at Tribeca 2015 is a fine example of why this year’s festival lineup is so strong. There are some years where Tribeca features quite a few movies that prove the adage “‘Independent’ does not necessarily mean ‘good,’” but this year is not one of them. Although one of the movies below stands above …
Manos Sucias Directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka Colombia and USA, 2014 Jacobo (Jarlin Javier Martinez), a world-hardened but innocent fisherman, and naïve, 19 year-old Delio (Cristian James Abvincula) set out on a dangerous drug mission on the coast of Colombia in Josef Kubota Wladyka’s directorial debut. This film is reminiscent of the recent La Jaula de …
Manos Sucias Directed by Josef Wladyka Colombia, 2014 It’s not hard to see why the great Spike Lee would want to get his hands on the drug-trafficking dramatic thriller Manos Sucias. It’s exceptionally made and extraordinarily tense. It also profiles a culture that’s both rarely depicted in art and quite underserved in real life. Lee …
Next Goal Wins Directed by Mike Brett and Steve Jamison United Kingdom, 2014 For sports fans, there’s nothing more hopeless than cheering for a perennial loser. Die-hard supporters of the Detroit Lions, Cleveland Browns, and Kansas City Royals, among other notoriously bad franchises, know the agony of defeat all too well. But they’ve got nothing …
When the Garden Was Eden Directed by Michael Rapaport USA, 2014 It was Game 5 of the 1970 NBA finals. A tight series between the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks might have turned when Knicks star Willis Reed went down with a leg injury. Reed—the captain of the team, the league MVP, and …
The Machine wins right out of the gate by mentioning Alan Turing and his Turing Test in the context of a sci-fi thriller. Turing became one of the fathers of modern computing during World War II thanks to his engineering efforts on the side of the Allies, and his Turing Test measures whether a computer can dupe a human being into believing that it is human. The Machine starts by imagining a computer which is capable of passing the Turing Test, raising stakes that are realistically grounded and immense for the future of mankind.
There are a great many regions in America for which prescription drug addiction is no joke. In fact, a documentary playing at the Tribeca Film Festival this year, Oxyana, addresses how prescription drugs are devastating West Virginia, and there are precious few laughs to be found there. However, that is not the approach taken by Enid Zentelis’ Tribeca film Bottled Up, which is not quite a comedy but mixes in a fair amount of laughs with the addiction drama that it turns upon.
The abuse of prescription drugs, particularly Oxycontin and related medications, has reached epidemic status in many rural American communities, but nowhere is it worse than the Oceana section of West Virginia, nicknamed “Oxyana” by the residents. Oceana’s levels of drug abuse are so high that at one point during Sean Dunne’s new documentary Oxyana, a doctor claims that an entire generation of residents has become lost – even those who do not die may never have a valuable contribution to society.
The very first shot of the Tribeca entry Mr. Jones is very clearly shot by a handheld camera, from the inside of a car, by a couple who are heading off into the wilderness for some reason. “Fantasic,” the thought might come, “yet another found-footage horror movie. There have only been a million of those in the past five years.” And Mr. Jones is a found-footage horror film, no question about that, but it has a unique and interesting take on the format which works perfectly on its minuscule budget.
Movies about teenagers can tolerate cliche much better than movies about adults. The reason for this is fairly obvious: teenagers haven’t learned enough yet to avoid doing the wrong things that characters in movies shouldn’t do. Teenagers haven’t learned enough about love to avoid the wrong relationship, haven’t learned enough about crime to avoid getting caught, haven’t learned enough about necromancy to avoid reading from the Book of the Dead. So it’s not necessarily a bad thing to say that Mo Ogrodnik’s Deep Powder employs a number of plot or character points that have been seen before – these teenagers will have to learn their lessons the hard way, as all movie teenagers do.
In 1985, a confrontation occurred in a West Philadelphia neighborhood between the Philadelphia police and an activist group that called itself MOVE. By the conclusion of the incident, a fire had broken out that destroyed several blocks’ worth of residential homes. Eleven people died.
As documented first by Rolling Stone magazine, men in Stoner’s unit had worked as a so-called “Kill Team,” shooting innocent Afghans for sport and them framing them to appear like Taliban insurgents. Dan Krauss’ new documentary The Kill Team is an exhaustive, and sometimes exhausting, look inside their case.
Frankenstein’s Army Netherlands, 2013 Written by Chris W. Mitchell and Miguel Tejada-Flores Directed by Richard Raaphorst I don’t like to insert myself into these reviews, but at this point it’s important that you know something about me: I have a strong stomach, movie-wise. I didn’t even flinch the first time I saw the birthing scene …
Trishna Written by Michael Winterbottom Directed by Michael Winterbottom UK, 2011 Almost any great story possesses two qualities that define it as a classic; those are timelessness and universality. Michael Winterbottom renews the relevance of classic Victorian novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles by transplanting its heroine into modern day India and renaming her Trishna, who …
Yes, spring film festival season is almost here again. The 11th edition of the Tribeca Film Festival unveiled a whole lot of its programming this morning, and there are some items of note. Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz graces the Spotlight section, along with 33 other selections, including Julie Delpy’s 2 Days In Ney York …
Founded in 2002 by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff in a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the consequent loss of vitality in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Manhattan, the Tribeca Film Festival has become one of the most important film festival in the world. The …